New Brunswick Man Pleads Guilty To Aggravated Manslaughter

NEW BRUNSWICK — A New Brunswick man pleaded today to a count of aggravated manslaughter, admitting he fatally beat another city resident more than two years ago, Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce J. Kaplan announced.

Larry Byrd, 41, will be sentenced to serve up to 15 years in a New Jersey state prison, with no chance of parole until he completes 85 percent of the term for killing Lenny Jackson, 38.

Byrd is scheduled to be sentenced on April 8 by Superior Court Judge Michael A. Toto at the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick.

Byrd was arrested and charged on Jan. 19, 2011, following an intensive investigation by Detective Kenneth Abode of the New Brunswick Police Department and Investigator Michael Daniewicz of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.

The investigation began after police received a 911 call at 10:49 p.m. on November 17, 2010, and arrived on Delavan Street to find the victim had been beaten and was unconscious.

He was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and later was transferred to a rehabilitation facility in Edison, where he died on December 20, 2010.

An autopsy by the Middlesex County Medical Examiner’s Office showed the victim died from complications from injuries that were inflicted during the assault.

The investigation showed Byrd assaulted the victim outside a house on Delavan Street. Police further determined the two men were acquaintances, and that the assault was not a random attack.

Police continued to search for Byrd, who was apprehended at a motel on Route 35 in Middletown Township.